Court Study Admits Flaws, Aims For Fixes
Goals include greater accessibility, diversity
By THOMAS B. SCHEFFEY
After a year of listening to focus groups and sifting through questionnaires, the state Judicial Branch has unveiled a sweeping blueprint for its future in a document that provides an often candid analysis of current flaws in the court system.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Chase T. Rogers unveiled her "Strategic Plan for the Judicial Branch" at the annual meeting of state judges June 30 at the Middlesex Courthouse. The plan, a comprehensive examination of the problems and potential of the courts, is the first of its kind in Connecticut history.
Court personnel know the ugly secrets of how the Judicial Branch can fail the public, but seldom acknowledge them explicitly. This plan admits the system's real shortcomings. Take the "defendant with intellectual disabilities" who doesn't comprehend when a judges advises him of his rights. Or the "frightened elderly landlord with limited English proficiency" who doesn't understand her pre-hearing instructions.
Then there's the hearing-impaired litigant, never informed that listening devices are available. Even more unfortunate, the person who, "because he cannot read the docket sheets posted, spends all day in the wrong courtroom, only to have a warrant issued for his arrest for failure to appear."
Those are examples, all culled from the 51-page report, of people deprived of access to the court system. Improving court access is the first of five areas the plan seeks to address. The four others are changing demographics, delivery of services, collaboration and accountability.
Appellate Court Judge Alexandra DiPentima chaired the 41-member committee that drafted the report. The membership roll includes eight lawyers in private practice, 18 judges and one journalist. The rest are court and government officials. The commission conducted more than 90 focus groups over the past year.
In a court satisfaction study, respondents gave Connecticut courts an overall rating of 81.7 percent. While that may sound good, the survey said most service organizations strive for ratings in the high 80s.
"Not only is this the first strategic plane for Connecticut's Judicial Branch, it's one of the first done in any of the states," DiPentima told the Law Tribune. "It's even more unusual to have a blitz of focus groups, as we did, [made up of] lawyers, court employees, advocacy groups."
DiPentima said she's determined this will not become a shelf study. "We've already started working on an implementation of the plan, to get strategies and activities done toward each of the five goals this year," she said. "I haven't disbanded the commission, and I've said at the end of next year, I want to show what we've done in implementing this. We have pressure on us, self-imposed, and the chief justice is absolutely committed to implementing this plan."
One of the next steps is to decide what parts of the Judicial Branch will be responsible for implementing specific ideas. "There are certain things we could do very quickly, but we want to make sure the right people are involved," DiPentima said.
Better Access
The plan focuses on those who, due to language, cultural, educational or psychological difficulties, have trouble using the courts and related services, such as probation and pre-trial diversionary programs. The plan recommends an increase in multilingual signs, more maps and more visible information for people with disabilities. The branch also aims to hire more multi-lingual staff members and more interpreters for civil cases, where the unmet need is greatest.
The study recommends training court personnel to spot people with intellectual and psychiatric disabilities. It also calls for enhanced use of technology to serve the disabled. In fact, the study says that more streaming video of court proceedings, more documents on the Internet and a better Judicial Branch web site would increase accessibility for everyone. The access recommendations also include flexible scheduling of court cases and the possibility of longer hours of operation.
At the same time the plan calls for more public information, it sets goals for decreasing invasions of privacy. Though it is vague on how this might be done, it said people must be assured that "their information will not be misused [and] their safety will not be compromised."
Changing Demographics
The number of foreign-born people in Connecticut has risen from a third of a million in 2000 to about half a million now. Increasingly, cultural differences have to be considered by the courts. "For example," the commission notes, "some individuals with limited English proficiency will nod in agreement for fear of seeming disrespectful of authority despite the fact that they do not understand what the judge said."
In response, the plan aims for a more diverse Judicial Branch work force that "reflects the ethnic and cultural diversity of those who interact with the Branch." To do that, the aim is to advertise job openings in minority communities and attract a more diverse group of job applicants.
Further, the study recommends that court-ordered programs should consider the cultural background of the participant. To make improvements in this area, the survey recommends that the Judicial Branch consult with representatives of minority groups.
Judges and court staff can improve their awareness of cultural and ethnic differences "while providing consistent treatment." Success in this area will be measured by a decrease in those reporting disparate treatment due to race or ethnicity, it says.
"I think it's important that the Judicial Branch is giving careful consideration to the state's changing demographics, and encouraging that it plans to have court personnel reflect the diversity of the people being served," said Jessica C. Torres, an assistant attorney general and board member of the Connecticut Hispanic Bar Association. "I'm very impressed with Chief Justice Rogers' actions, and I think she will be able to make a significant change in the way the Judicial Branch looks."
The diversity issues are not limited to ethnic groups. The report notes that the Judicial Branch increasingly handles matters involving young people, from child custody cases to serious juvenile offenders. The report calls for court personnel, including judges, to have an appropriate understanding of developmental stages of children and adolescents and to tailor services and programs accordingly.
Delivery Of Services
Too often, the public, jurors and attorneys are unhappily surprised by what the courts do or don't do, the study notes. Examples: the unrepresented litigant facing a housing foreclosure, the lawyer disillusioned by "arguing motions to a different judge each time" in a complex case, or jurors officiously herded from place to place, to sit and wait, without explanation. Such experiences "can lead to an overall perception of an ineffective, inconsistent and unfair judicial system."
This part of the plan aims to increase efficiency of case management and court practices, which currently "vary from court to court, resulting in confusion and uncertainty for attorneys and litigants," according to the report.
It also said the courts need to be more user-friendly for people without legal representation. This means more forms in "plain language," the committee says, and more educational tools for people who represent themselves.
The survey also wants to make jurors more comfortable, and thus more likely to serve. It calls for using surveys to determine juror satisfaction and developing technology to inform jurors of their role and to provide them with clear information on jury service.
The plan also recommends a greater use of alternative dispute resolution, exploring specialized courts, and increasing the use of court appearances by telephone and video. The overall aim is to reduce the duration of cases.
Collaboration
The Judicial Branch recognizes it must deal with the executive and legislative branches. To that end, it hopes to improve overall communication and increase the number of joint efforts with other government groups, academic researchers and bar groups.
According to the report, a major reason for better communication is that the legislative and executive branches control funding for the Judicial Branch. But the report says stronger links must be forged with groups and agencies that provide non-court services. "The role of the Judicial Branch is evolving from its core function of dispute resolution to one that includes a substantial role in providing human services, such as treatment-based rehabilitation, education, advocacy and mediation," the report stated.
Also important are relations with other entities in the criminal justice system. For example, the branch also generates data relied upon by police, such as the registry of protective orders, motor vehicle license status reports and the sexual offender registry. "Judges and others in the criminal justice system rely on this information when setting bonds or release conditions for criminal defendants," the study says.
Accountability
In past years, individual courts had conflicting dress codes for the public. People didn't know exactly what they could wear to court, let alone what services they could expected from court staff when they got there. In this part of the plan, an effort would be made to instill in court staff members a "How can I help you today?" attitude. An effort would be made to redesign career tracks in what now seem like dead-end jobs.
In addition, the courts would conduct surveys to gain more public feedback and conduct media campaigns to increase public education about the courts. Judges would be encouraged to make public appearances more often.
The branch would also explore assigning one judge to a specific case for its duration, rather than the current next-horse-in-the-stable system. It might also look into having individual judges specialize in specific types of cases, such as land use appeals, patents, trademark and mass tort litigation, to increase confidence that the jurist is up to the task.
Finally, the plan calls for revamping the current system for lawyer evaluation of judges so attorneys feel their opinions are truly anonymous and that they can "participate honestly in the evaluation process."
"An evaluation program that guarantees anonymity and provides fair and statistically reliable feedback will assist judges in identifying areas requiring additional training and support," the report stated.•
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